For the last few years, the Jacksonville Jaguars have continued to screw over the city of Jacksonville by moving multiple home games away from their home and off to London, England. Yet, the team is still hell-bent on asking the city to pony up as if every home game is in Jacksonville. Even with virtually every non-bias poll showing that locals do not want to give any money to their billionaire football owner. Months ago, the Jaguars alerted the public that they would be asking for some amount of taxpayer money to renovate their stadium. The Jaguars also emphasized that they understood that a new stadium was too much of an ask for the team, so they preferred to just renovate their current stadium. Or, as the Jaguars President stated in an interview, this renovation would be “the equivalent of a gut rehab of a house”.

Then the Jaguars released their plans. The cost of gut rehab? Remember, this is the cheap plan so that the team wouldn’t ask the public for too much money with a brand-new stadium…

The Jaguars envision a heavy local investment in the stadium, with the Jaguars responsible for the sports district around it. The city government would primarily shoulder the stadium cost, which could be on the hook for anywhere between $800 and $934 million — two-thirds of the overall price tag. Meanwhile, the city would be expected to spend between $75 million and $100 million on the sports district. – FloridaPolitics.com

This week, the President of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Mark Lamping, told a Florida website that residents of Jacksonville should be thankful that the Jaguars are owned by Shahid Khan. Why? Because he is just about the only person willing to “invest $1 billion into (Jacksonville)”. Furthermore, he wanted to remind all the watchdogs groups that a new stadium brings about “numerous benefits to the community”. According to Lamping and FloridaPolitics.com, some benefits are “intangible” while others come through “massive development investments in urban communities”. Lamping never explains what details he is talking about. He never gets around to telling us where or how the local area will see any benefit from a renovated stadium. Remember when Jacksonville residents were told about all the benefits that would come about from taxpayers giving $45 million dollars to help build an amphitheater next to EverBank Field? Even though Khan keeps all revenues from the building? To this day, has the public seen a single benefit from that spending of money?

Second, let’s stop acting as if the Jaguars owner is doing something noble with this project. Khan is worth $12 billion dollars and is getting an insane sweetheart deal that virtually nobody, outside sports owners, gets in their line of work. Wasn’t it just a few years ago that the Florida Times-Union wrote an article that started off with the following line: “Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan asks more and more from the city and in return gives less and less”? Do people remember how Khan tried to get his latest deal done several years ago? In 2021, Khan wanted a $500 million project (Lot J) to be approved by the city at an almost unheard of pace that didn’t even give city leaders a chance to fully read, much less vet, what was in the request. When the city asked an outside group to review this deal, the group wrote a draft stating that the city could save $92 million in infrastructure costs by adding some contract language. Hours before the final version of the report was issued, the Jaguars met with the outside group and somehow got the city-saving contract language removed. Not to worry, though, since the CEO of the group that wrote the report has come out and claimed that meeting with the developer is “customary” in their line of work. Yeah, nothing sketchy whatsoever about that.

Moreover, show me where Khan is putting $1 billion of his own money into this project. I have looked at it several times and can’t remotely see where he is even passing $500 million…and that is me being generous since I suspect he will be getting financial help from the NFL.

Like most NFL teams, the Jacksonville Jaguars want to be paid in direct money yet want everyone else to be paid with this fantasy money that the Jaguars claim will be produced once their newer stadium is rebuilt. It has been stated so many times, but I will say it again. When cities pay for a new arena, ballpark or stadium, not a single economical stat will increase due to the new sports home. Nothing. It has been proven for years and years. The next time you read a report that says how a new sports venue will bring in millions or billions for an area of the country, look at who wrote that report. It isn’t a coincidence that the same companies write reports for sports teams all over the country. They will write whatever they are told to write as long as the sports team pay their checks.

The Washington Examiner did a fantastic job detailing the many issues that arise when companies are being paid to write something yet pretend to be financial experts on the topic. The Mayor of OKC touted for months about how a new arena for their NBA team would create $590 million of economic impact and 3,000 jobs every year. The only problem? The numbers are complete fiction. Numerous actual economists were so disgusted with this report, that they wrote a letter to a local newspaper and informed everyone that “the discrepancies between such consulting reports and the analysis of actual outcomes are well known”. The letter also reminds the public to read the disclaimer on the report itself, which admits that “the estimates of possible impacts are not likely to be accurate”. Until a time comes when our public officials decide to listen to actual economists, we will be forced to deal with idiotic statements from people like the New York Governor, who continues to proclaim that even though local taxpayers will spend over a billion dollars for the new Bills stadium, the venue will pay for itself thanks to imaginary jobs that don’t exist and all sorts of other bull crap. Did I mention that the Bills multi-billionaire owners will keep 100% of the profits?

If any Jags fans were worried about PSL’s being instituted by the owner AFTER HAVING taxpayers pay for the renovations, I have some good and bad news. The good news is that there are no plans for it right now. But according to the Jaguars President, if the city doesn’t give them a good deal on these renovations, then the team may be forced to do it in the near future. Of course, after stating this, he then “did not want to speculate as to what the city would propose or what could cause PSLs to potentially be implemented”. So, the city better give us what we want or else you all will pay for it.

Does the blackmail ever end with this team?